Steve Cooper and Leicester’s style approach and methods explained…

But it’s not all doom and gloom for the East Midlands club. Cooper has also employed a modern, fluid style of football at Forest. Foxes fans are more accustomed to seeing that in the Premier League and last season in the Championship.

During Cooper’s first spell as manager at Swansea City, his philosophy had a heavy emphasis on possession. He used a similar style to that of Brendan Rodgers when he was at Leicester.

This is where both managers set up their teams primarily in a 4-2-3-1 formation. With most of the attacking play coming from wide areas through wingers who were good in one-on-one situations. And having full-backs who wanted to push up the pitch.

When Cooper was in charge of Swansea, they averaged 1.61 points per game in the 105 matches he oversaw as he led the Welsh club to seventh place. By comparison, last season LCFC averaged 2.11 points per game on their way to the Championship title.

Another important observation about Cooper’s time in charge of the Swans and Forest was that he gave youngsters the chance to thrive. One notable player from the Swansea side that reached the playoffs was Marc Guehi. While at Forest, academy graduate Ryan Yates got valuable minutes.

Towards the end of the Welshman’s tenure at the Jacks, his side were accused of keeping possession for the sake of it, and not trying to progress up the pitch with the same intent as when he first took charge. Again, this draws similarities to the Rodgers era at the Foxes.

During Forest’s first spell back in the Premier League, they tried to press high up the pitch as they attempted to continue in a similar fashion to what they did in the second tier. Which they were obviously caught doing in the EPL, much to the delight of LCFC fans. Along the way, the Trees suffered some heavy defeats, a 4-0 defeat to Leicester and a 6-1 defeat to Manchester City.

With this poor start, Cooper and his backroom staff had to re-evaluate their lineup along with the system and change what needed to be done. That way they could hope to maintain their top-flight status. This led to a new formation; switching to a 4-3-3 with the ball and then to a 4-5-1 when out of possession. This made the XI compact in the midfield area and capable of launching counter-attacks through the quick pace of Brennan Johnson and the creativity of Morgan Gibbs-White.

Switching to a style of play that allowed them to play more closely also had its shortcomings, as all setups do. Forest were consequently more susceptible to crosses into the box and conceding chances from wide areas. The perfect example of these shortcomings would be against Bournemouth at the City Ground, where all three of the Cherries’ goals came via crosses into the box.

With all that said, Cooper will mix up his style of play to suit whatever opponent City are playing. If they’re up against one of the Premier League’s elite teams, he’ll be prepared to break away quickly and soak up pressure. But if Leicester are at home with someone close to them in league positioning, they’ll play a more expansive style of football in attack.